A Time For Everything
by meldahlie
Summary: Narnia is drought-stricken, and King Caspian is troubled. Will the stars never change? Will the rain never come?
1. Drought

A Time for Everything

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Narnia is drought-stricken, and King Caspian is troubled. Will the stars never change? Will the rain never come?

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Drought

Summer had come to Narnia. Nay, for summer in Narnia is warm sunshine and dewy mornings, fresh green grass on the lanes and dappled golden sunlight through the beech leaves, refreshed now and then by the thousand pearls of gentle summer rain – not this Calormene heat. Narnia lay parched beneath a merciless sun. Everything was hot. Everything was dry, and brown, and scorched. And it was only August.

In the castle of Cair Paravel, King Caspian the Tenth stopped in the ante-chamber behind the Great Hall, and gestured for one of the fauns-in-waiting. "A glass of water, Lentaus, please." The young faun pattered away, and Caspian sighed, and sank down onto the edge of a table, and pulled the circlet of gold off his head. Some days, in this heat, it was almost too much to bear. The metal itself was hot, and the hair pressed to his forehead was hot – and everything was just too hot.

Not only was he too hot, his country was too hot. The heat had come in the spring, at apple blossom time. The yields in the castle orchard had looked at first as if they would be excellent; now the fruit had mostly withered and dropped. By midsummer, the feet of the dancing Fauns at the Great Dance on the Council Lawn had raised little puffs of dust with every step. Another month and a half had passed, and the burning heat continued.

News of the drought came in every day, and none of it was good. The Trees in Lantern Waste were growing slow and sleepy in their search for water; or at least the deep-rooted oaks and beeches. The smaller, shallower Trees were turning limp and yellow. There had been reports of some Hollies finally fainting for lack of water. The Waters, too: the Great River was low, the high mountain springs were mostly dry – and even the glass of well water which Lentaus pattered back and handed to him at that moment was warm, and rather thick.

Narnia was suffering; and it was the business of its King to bear its sorrows, and to do something about them if he could, and put the bravest face on it where he could not. Caspian swallowed the warm water, and fetched up a smile for his courtier. "Thank you, Lentaus."

To smile, to thank them, to help his people bear this trouble he could do nothing about – that was all he could do, at present. It seemed to Caspian such very, very, little; and then at other times, when he was hot and tired and parched himself, it seemed almost too much. Carrying on the business of the court as if all was well had today involved receiving a small envoy of Talking Beasts from the borders of Archenland. For a change, they had not come specifically to bring news of the drought, although they had brought plenty, even without words, with their dusty feet and weary faces. They had come, a mixed band of Ravens and Rabbits and Hedgehogs, because they too were carrying on as if all was well: carrying on the well-established convention of presenting the latest additions to their families at Court.

It had started after the War. In the first days of his reign, wherever Caspian had gone, the Animals had flocked to see him, and to bring their young ones to see 'The New King, the True King!' To Caspian, used to the self-serving flatteries and thinly veiled dislikes of the Telmarine court, it had been both delightful and humbling. He had made a special point of stopping wherever he could to speak to them. Gradually, gladly, it had become a tradition – a precious thing in itself in a land and people so newly united. Man and talking beast, faun, satyr and dwarf – plus the rather simple giant from Ettinsmoor who brought each of his not-talking donkey foals – all who could brought their offspring to be presented to the king.

He had lost track of how many thousand times he must have said "In the name of the Lion, I am glad to meet you." Narnia was growing to be a comfortably populous country again. Everyone – and Caspian choked off a sigh. It was a blessing on his land. Everyone, it seemed, each pair of rabbits and ravens and hedgehogs, had their young – apart from the king and queen.

There was no royal child. No one for Caspian's old Nurse, now very old but still hale and hearty after her meeting with the Lion, to tell the old, true stories to as she had to him. No small son to struggle with a wooden practice sword and tumble off a first pony. No daughter to be as fair and elegant as her mother, with the light of the stars in her eyes.

"When we are sent one," was all the Queen would say about it nowadays. "My father was very old when I was born."

 _If, not when,_ the insidious, treacherous little voice at the back of Caspian's mind would whisper. _If..._ And it was no good to mention Ramandu. He was one of the Stars, not a Son of Adam; and he grew younger with each passing year – as Caspian did not. Year followed year, and there was no heir for Narnia. Only the king, and the queen, and Caspian's small cloud of worry that was the question of succession.

It made receiving the young ones of all his subjects very hard, some days – especially when, like today, he was too hot. Caspian handed the empty glass back to Lentaus, but stayed sitting on the edge of the table.

Once – and only once – he had mentioned the matter of an heir to Glenstorm, who would know what was written in the stars about it. And it had been like the day in this burning summer when he and the Lord Mavramorn, riding out to deal with some matter or other, had passed Aslan's Howe. At the memory of the cool, dark places within the Howe, Caspian had reigned up suddenly, and leaving the horses outside, led the way in to find a moment's respite.

It had been cool in there, but there had been no respite. Barely into the first passage, Lord Mavramorn had laid a hand on Caspian's arm. "Sire," he had said simply. "I have held the knife that was used on this Table. I have been forgiven, but this is no place for me." And there was nothing Caspian could do but lead the way out again, and go on with the parched, burning day.

In like manner had been his meeting with Glenstorm. The Centaur had heard him out, and then shaken his head without further ado. "Sire," he had said simply. "The stars show no change." And against that, there was nothing Caspian could say.

Had he, somewhere, been wrong? Should he not have let his cousin go into exile? If he, Caspian, left no heir, the next in line to the Narnian throne should logically be his uncle's son – but his unknown, few month old cousin had gone through the door with Prunaprismia and all the other Telmarines who had not chosen to stay. Caspian had not been sorry to see the last of his aunt – but should he have stopped them? Or at least kept his cousin back – to be raised by his own Nurse, perhaps?

Or had he been wrong on the Voyage of the Dawn Treader? There had, Caspian knew all too well, been too many occasions on that journey where he had at least wanted to go his own way – not just the day he had tried to got the Edge of the World with Reepicheep. That day Aslan had come and stopped him; so disappointingly many other days since then Caspian knew he had simply carried on into tangles and confusions – had he been wrong on their return to Ramandu's island? Lord Mavramorn and his wife – the Duke of Galma's daughter with the squint and the freckles – also still waited for a son, but they had five (freckled) daughters. Was it that the children of the Stars and the Children of Adam should not marry?

Was it this? Was it that? Was it –

No! Caspian smashed his fist down onto the table beside him, and on the doubts that had been perched there. No! No! No! Aslan himself had come to their wedding! As well say that he, Caspian, should not be king! Aslan had been at his coronation; by Aslan's own agreement Caspian had taken the vow to seek the seven lost friends of his father; Aslan had been there, all the way; and at the end, Caspian's bride had been waiting for him. So-!

His sudden flash of anger ebbed away. So, then. So they must go on, as Narnia must go on, day by burning day, just as they were in this barren, scorching summer. He squinted, as if to bring his focus back to the present moment, and caught sight of his faun-in-waiting, still standing there but looking very worried at the king suddenly thumping the furniture. Caspian gave him a somewhat apologetic smile. "Is, er, is the – do you know where the Queen is, Lentaus?" It was the only question he could think of quickly, to make something sensible to say.

Lentaus bowed. "Her Majesty went out into the grounds with the Dryad Salicye and the Lady Rhoop and the Lady Mavramorn. Does Your Majesty wish someone to go and find them? Or a message taken? Or-"

Caspian shook his head quickly. If a Dryad had come to visit, the Queen would most certainly be found in the gardens, and the walk looking for her would probably do him good. It was, after all, the Queen's frequent comment that he brooded over things too much – which Caspian knew was true, just as he knew he also tended to swing suddenly to the opposite extreme and fix on his own way and start sounding like Miraz.

Yes – no – a walk in the grounds would be good. The Queen's gardens, as people called them, were still beautiful, even in the drought. Coming from a low, sea-swept island, the ordinary garden flowers and bushes of Narnia had been a delight to the Queen – and bringing them to her had been a delight to the Narnians. Even today, probably literally today, if the Dryad Salicye had come to visit, the Narnians expressed their love for the Queen in gifts of plants. The gardens of the restored castle at Cair Paravel had bloomed into a beauty the Dryads whispered rivalled the gardens of the Golden Age. Caspian felt the gardens reflected the Queen's own beauty – but the Queen denied both of these, and insisted the gardens were an echo of the love that had brought the plants.

Whatever it was, the garden's flourished under the Queen's watchful care – and Caspian knew she hurt as badly over each drought-dropped fruit and sun-scorched blossom as he did over the dry springs and and wilting trees of all Narnia. But – here they were.

Caspian straightened, and put his still-too-hot crown back on. "Thank you, Lentaus. I will go and find Her Majesty." He shook his head at the faun's enquiring glance. "No, I don't need any attendant." He crossed the room and opened the side door into a blast of hot air like opening an oven.

He had not meant – consciously – to go and check the castle well on the way. A report of the water level was brought to him everyday, and it wasn't that he doubted the chief steward's word or measurements. Sometimes he just wanted to see things for himself, Caspian argued with the small voice in his head when he registered where his feet had led him. There was no harm in that, surely.

But it was awfully depressing. Even sitting in the lukewarm shade of the orchards (no shade was cool in Narnia these days), the well house was hot. The ferns which normally grew on the well had shrivelled and died; the well rope and bucket where they hung from the winding hook were dry; and peering into the black depths, Caspian could see no water. He stopped himself from lowering the rope to test the depth, and instead leaned on the edge of the well and stared downwards. No breath of cool, damp air rose as it should have. Hot – dry – nothing.

No, not quite nothing. For the moment, somewhere down there, was water. Hot and thick. When that ran out, or turned salty on this little island that was Cair Paravel-?

The king sighed. "Aslan? Aslan?"

But he could not think what else to say, so he left the words hanging there in the dry air above the well, and went to look for the Queen in her poor parched garden.

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 _A/N: To be continued..._

 _If you are wondering about Lord Mavramorn, keep an eye out for a tale called "Between the Sandhills and the Sea" later in the month!_


	2. Promise

Promise

A few days after the young Talking Beasts' presentation at court, Caspian was spending the afternoon working on the royal correspondence. He had, for the moment, given up dictating to a scribe. In this heat, ink tended to get sticky and blot, and it interrupted Caspian's flow of thought and words to have to stop constantly and wait while the pen was wiped and the blot cleaned up. Writing it himself was just one less strain on his heat-frazzled nerves.

To those who were worried about the amount of extra work it gave him – like Doctor Cornelius and the Queen – Caspian had offered the excuse that it enabled him to work in cooler spots about the castle, without the risk of any affairs of state being overheard. Excuse though that was, moving out of the royal study had certainly been a necessity. The royal study was a nice, bright room, with big south-facing windows opening onto the sun terrace in order to maximise the light in the winter. At present, it could have substituted very nicely for the castle bread oven and saved them the heat and trouble of lighting a fire in the kitchens.

Caspian had at first shifted his desk into the castle library, which was only just along the corridor from his study but on the shadier side of the wing. It had been cooler, but it had not worked out. A king could not simply appropriate and close off the entire castle library for his own private use, so everybody from the elderly Doctor Cornelius to the youngest faun-in-waiting had continued to come in. When they had noticed the king working in there, they had stopped, murmured respectful but disturbing apologies and gone out again. When they had not noticed the king working in there, they had made the usual, soft book-clattering noises of readers in a library, and either Trumpkin or one of the fauns-in-waiting had materialised as if from nowhere and respectfully but disturbingly thrown them out. It had made getting his work done impossible – partly due to the respectful disturbances and partly due to Caspian's increasing feeling of guilt at so upsetting everybody else's use of the room, simply because he couldn't bear the temperature in his own private study. As Caspian had explained to his wife at dinner one day, it had felt as though he had wanted to lie in the grass in the sun; and instead of quietly minding his own business and lying in the orchard, he had lain down in the lists and stopped everybody else having a tournament.

At this, the Queen had laughed. "And how do you know what that's like?"

Laughter. Caspian paused in his paper-shuffling and wiped his yet-again sticky pen. There wasn't much laughter in Narnia at present. Plenty of people smiling determinedly – the king foremost among them – but no laughter. Everything was too parched for mirth – and life was more parched without it.

Caspian sighed, and twisted in his chair to look out of the small window. He had found an alternative to the library, in a small ante-chamber at the back of the royal apartments. It looked out on the same shadier side of the castle as the library, and also connected conveniently to a back staircase, so as to save all those who came to see him from having to troop through the royal bedroom. Perhaps 'ante-chamber' was a rather over-grand description: there was just room for the desk and a stool and Caspian himself and sort of room for exactly one visitor at a time. Cubbyhole was probably a better word.

Apart from the space, or lack of it, the cubbyhole was perfectly adequate, apart from the disadvantage of the window. It was entirely necessary for light and ventilation and any slight breath of warm breeze, but being upstairs, Caspian could see the sea from it. Sometimes it was hard to keep his mind from wandering, to that bleached-blue horizon and beyond. Galma, Terebinthia, and far, far further … Coriakin's Isle … Dragon Island … and the End of the World, where the water was like drinkable light …

No. That was not a good thing to think about; not when everything was so hot even the sea was hot, and swimming in it was more like being a pickle in a jar than anything else. Caspian sighed again, and hauled his eyes and his mind back from the bleached-blue horizon. Reports, accounts, petitions covered the desk in stacks, but he had a more pressing demand for his attention. Official dispatches had come in from the Lone Islands, and a private letter from the Duke of the Lone Islands under the same cover. Caspian had, in the first moment, been glad to see Lord Bern's fine, firm handwriting. But the news Bern sent–

The King of Narnia and Emperor of the Lone Islands shut his eyes for a moment, and then opened them and read the letter again. After a brief couple of lines to say that the Lone Islands were 'managing' in the drought – although it glared out from between the lines that 'surviving' would have been a better word and 'with difficulty' would have accurately completed the description – Lord Bern wrote simply that all ships from Calormene _must_ be quarantined. Something nasty and infectious was spreading in Tashbaan.

Caspian stared at the words until they seemed to be burned into his eyes. In this heat, on that filthy, river-surrounded island of Tashbaan, it was not surprising that disease should occur. But – but – he shut his eyes again as if try and shut out the truth, put his head in his hands and clutched almost frantically at the hot, heavy crown. "Aslan! Aslan!"

The Name Above All Names in Narnia, and yet the words were as dry and empty and comfort-less as they had been by the well. A wave of bleak despair seemed to hang over the king and his castle and his country – a wave of foulness and fear and futility as inescapable as the burning, desert-like sun. It made him want to tear off his crown and fling it and all responsibility away; to flee; to get away, somewhere, anywhere – but _NO!_ Caspian bit down on his tongue against the veritable cry of frustration that hovered there, held the gold circlet onto his head until his fingers hurt, and forced his mind into words. "Oh, Aslan! Not That Too! Not sickness! Not on top of the drought! Not that! Not that! We can cope with the heat – but not with pestilence as well!"

The images of Narnia in the drought forced their way before his screwed-shut eyes. Were they really coping?

"Aslan?" Caspian begged. "We can't go on much longer! _I_ can't go on much longer – not like this! Everything's suffering – this whole land You set me over! And the Hollies are fainting and there's pestilence in Calormen – where are You? Where?!"

There was silence. Caspian bowed his head down to Lord Bern's letter on the desk. "If it's something Narnia has done," he whispered in anguish, "show us! If it's something _I've_ done! Show me! And then punish us! Not the Lone Islands! Not Archenland! Not even Calormen!" he added. "Punish me, if you can! Not your people – not these Trees and Beasts and Waters."

The mention of the Trees and Beasts and Waters dragged an old, old tale to his mind. "Aslan," Caspian ventured. "You made laughter. On the day the world was made, there was the first joke. And now–!" It seemed to sum up everything: "Now we're too hot even to laugh! Even to laugh!"

He sat, bowed, in the silence, and then straightened up. Very carefully, he let go of his wild grasp on his hair and crown, and laid both hands gently, deliberately down upon the open letter, palms facing up in supplication.

"Aslan," he said quietly, as he would have to the Queen or Trumpkin or anyone else whom he had sensed had come into the room behind him, unseen but present. "Aslan," Caspian repeated, "could you send enough laughter to get me through today? Just sufficient for today? Please? For Your Name's sake?"

Then he reached for his pen, and wiped the sticky ink off it, and wrote out the orders for the quarantining of all Calormene shipping.

He had just finished when there was a faint noise; a murmur of voices. Voices usually meant someone squeezing up the back stairs to speak to the king, but these weren't coming from the direction of the back stairs. Caspian listened a moment longer, and then rose and opened the other door, into the royal apartment. A deep, solemn voice – and the Queen's own silver-and-gold laugh.

"Glenstorm!" Caspian cried out in surprise, at the wisest of his Centaurs looking terribly incongruous in the royal bedroom. "Whatever-?!"

"Your Majesty." Glenstorm bowed his head in greeting. "I must beg your pardon, firstly for my intrusion." He gestured around the room. "I was told it was possible to speak to Your Majesty in your study by ascending a rather narrow flight of stairs, and while I assure you I was about to do so, Her Majesty most graciously apprehended me, and requested me to accompany her by this – other route."

Glenstorm's tone was deeply apologetic; Caspian was simply glad somebody in the castle had had a sense of proportion when it came to large centaurs, narrow staircases and small cubbyholes.

"Which brings me to my other failing," the centaur continued steadily. "While I was charged to bring the message to Your Majesty alone, I am afraid that I have imparted much of the gist of it already, to your wife. I trust this will bring no harm in consequence, but I beg Your Majesty's pardon."

He bowed again, solemnly. "I am, My King, bid to tell you that the stars have changed. "Pleidia the Bearer of Water has passed Tarvis and the Ship, and draws near to the Earth. It is a sign of-"

"Rain," broke in the Queen, as though she could hold in the news no longer. She stretched out one hand to Caspian. "Rain. Rain is coming!"

Rain. Rain? Rain as well as laughter? Caspian stared at the Queen's outstretched hand, vaguely aware that his mouth was hanging open in stunned belief. Rain? Rain? _Rain?_ He managed to shut his mouth, and looked up, slowly, to meet his wife's eyes and stare into them, into the same hope and belief and stirring, blossoming joy for their parched land that he could feel springing up in himself.

"Rain," he whispered at the same moment she did – and in the sudden laughter their hands were joined and he drew her close. "Heart-of-my-heart! Rain!" There was a slight noise, and Caspian remembered the bearer of the news, and swung to face him, still holding the Queen's hands.

"Go, I beg thee, Glenstorm! Go and bid them tell all Narnia!"

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 _To be continued..._


	3. Fulfillment

Fulfilment

The rain took two more months. August finished, still burning hot; September dragged out the same – but Aslan had promised rain, and in that promise the King and Narnia waited.

"It makes it easier," said Caspian to the Queen, one late September evening, as they walked in the hot shade of the orchard because it was still far too hot to walk on the terrace. "To wait."

The Queen's rather weary-looking steps slowed. "Having a promise of rain?"

"Yes..." said Caspian. "And also, I'm meeting – just a little laughter, each day. Just sufficient for each day."

The Queen's appreciative laughter had been sufficient for that day. In the first week of October, a faun had just chuckled heartily over some joke whispered to him by his neighbour, when a sudden cold breath of air swept in the wide open windows. Everybody paused, and in the hush, everybody could hear the roar, the rushing, thundering roar of a rain squall coming across the sea. With a din like a thousand feet running, the rain slammed into the castle walls, drummed on the roof, streamed down the windows. If anybody had said anything, it could not have been heard – but Caspian didn't think anyone had. He didn't think he had said anything either – he had only sat transfixed like everybody else – and then risen like everybody else and leaving a half-eaten breakfast, they had all rushed out into the rain.

Rain! Rain! Rain! A clear, cool, miraculous torrent pouring from the sky! Rain! The entire court of Narnia stood in the downpour, and got joyfully soaked. Giant Rumblebuffin simply stood there with his arms outstretched and head tipped back, sheltering several indignant dwarfs who'd wanted to get wet; Trufflehunter lay down in a puddle and rolled; the fauns-in-waiting broke into an impromptu dance on the lawns, their feet raising splashes of water with every step they took. One by one, the wet, laughing crowd of courtiers joined in, the castle lawn turning into a vast, muddy, rejoicing Grand Chain.

Rain – Laughter – Life – had come back to Narnia. Caspian swung round to look for the Queen to share his joy with.

She was not on the terrace; she was not among the dancers; she was not, in that instant, anywhere to be seen. Caspian peered rather frantically about – then Trumpkin danced past, arm in arm with a Hedgehog on one side and a Bulgy Bear cub on the other. "Her Majesty," he bellowed over the rain, displaying his usual ability to guess the king's anxieties, "is down there!"

'Down there' was the seaward edge of the lawn. As Caspian wove his way through the crowd of soaked and happy courtiers, he could see the Queen, standing quite still in the rain with her arms held out to the east as she had that first morning on Ramandu's island. Caspian stopped. He didn't think he'd spoken; he didn't even think he'd moved into her line of vision – but she turned, and smiled at him. A smile like the rising sun, full of the joy – like his own – that was for all Narnia.

"The stars have changed," she said softly, holding out her hands to him and the sky.

"Rain," Caspian agreed, catching her hand. Rain. Strange that you could put so much joy and thanksgiving into one short word. They stared at each other for a minute's perfect, happy silence amidst the rejoicing hubbub of the court and the patter of the rain, and then Caspian gestured towards the castle. "I had probably better go in and start writing orders for everyone to be moved out of low-lying areas in case of flooding. _And_ I think we ought to start making arrangements for a feast."

For the rest of the day, Cair Paravel hummed with preparations. There is a great deal involved in laying on a Narnian feast, especially when the number of giants attending swells from one to five, as the entire Rumblebuffin clan arrived to offer their assistance in case of flooding, and, Caspian suspected, to not miss out on the feast. Such was the hurrying and scurrying, the peeling and plucking, the roasting and baking that the king eventually betook himself out of the way of all happily over-busy cooks and courtiers, and spent the afternoon carrying all his paperwork back from the cubbyhole to the royal study. Had there ever been a more joyful sound than rain drumming on the big, south-facing windows? He thought not – until the Great Hall was filled that evening with every courtier of Cair Paravel and every Narnian who had travelled in to join the celebrations and the feast, and the great, joyful hubbub that they made.

Caspian wasn't quite sure afterwards exactly what he had said by way of welcome, only that it had seemed to please all those smiling faces of his people looking up at him on the dais – and that a few minutes after he had sat down again and the feast was in full swing, the Queen had murmured an apology and left the High Table in a hurry.

An empty chair draws almost more eyes than the King standing to make a speech. A thread of uncertain whispering developed suddenly through the noise of the feast – a whispering as puzzled as Caspian felt. In the spreading hush, Lord Mavramorn leaned forwards from the far end of the table. "I am wondering, Your Majesty," he said in a voice louder than the question required, "just what further surprise in the matter of provisions Her Majesty went towards the kitchens to attend to?"

 _Her Majesty had gone to the kitchens to arrange more of the feast._ The words could not be heard, but the pattern of the whisper could be as it flowed out from those within earshot of the High Table. Where it went, the noise of the feast rose again, back into happiness. _Her Majesty had gone to the kitchens to arrange more of the feast._ It was an explanation, a reassurance Caspian knew he should have provided, even as he woodenly smiled his thanks down to the table to Lord Mavramorn, but – the Queen?

Fear slipped into the back of his mind. The Queen knew as well as Caspian and Mavramorn what her absence from the feast would do – the damper on their people's happiness – there could only be some overwhelming reason for it. And – and – and there was sickness in Calormen. There had been, somehow, no pestilence come to Narnia – so far. But-? Caspian sat, his mind racing. The Queen had been pale at breakfast, before the rain. She had been tired, yesterday. And for several days before that. And then she had worked like a faun-in-waiting herself all day, to organise this feast – and got completely soaked in the rain on the lawn – and had in fact, been standing off by herself, rather than joining the dancers...

Caspian could stand it no longer. He leaned along the table towards the ever-faithful Trumpkin. "Make my excuses – for a minute." He tried not to hear the sudden drop in noise levels as he hurried through the door off the dais.

The Queen was not in the ante-chamber, but the door to the back staircase was open and as Caspian listened at the foot, there was the murmur of a dryad-in-waiting's voice at the top.

One dryad, holding a large bowl. The Queen, bending over it. Caspian forgot all greeting or warning of his sudden presence. "Are you ill?"

It was, perhaps, abrupt, for both the ladies jumped, and the dryad blushed and hurried away with the bowl. Caspian crossed the room slightly slower than he had climbed the stairs, and looked down at his wife. "Are you ill?" he repeated frantically. "Are you ill?"

"I was sick," said the Queen ruefully, brushing her limp hair back. "But that doesn't mean I am ill."

Caspian stared in blank bewilderment. "But – what – I –?"

His wife looked at him gravely. "It is the way of women. That they may, in the beginning of a little one, be rather sick on occasion."

"A-? A-?"

"Your son. Your heir," said the Queen, slowly and clearly. "I only knew this morning, but there was no chance to tell you before breakfast. A couple of months."

"August," Caspian calculated almost automatically. "The day..."

His wife inclined her head in agreement. "I think I interrupted Glenstorm before he delivered his whole message about the stars changing. We thought it was only rain, and afterwards-"

"Yes," said Caspian slowly. "Afterwards..."

He could not find any more words. Aslan? The stars had assembled with Your answer, and it was this? All this? Laughter – and rain – and an heir for Narnia...?

"Why are you standing there smiling?" said the Queen, with a gentle, half-mocking laugh. "With your wife sitting up here, feeling awful; and your court sitting downstairs, wondering what the matter is?"

The King smiled suddenly. "Because there is a time for everything, and because sometimes the steps of the dance are so intricate the dancers do not see the pattern. Only He does."

And Caspian bent and kissed her. "And because our son will be born in the spring."

~:~~:~

 _A/N: There will be a sequel one-shot tomorrow!_


End file.
